


Elia Martell Speaks - 7 Bombshells From Last Night's Interview

by Anonymous



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: News Article Format, Others Mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:21:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29917530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On Triember 7, the long-awaited (and well-teased) interview between Princess Elia Martell and TV legend Opara Wynnfred aired as a primetime special on NBS, and you just know the royal tea spilled out of all those dainty porcelain cups. Over two hours (with plenty of commercial breaks), the Princess of Dorne spoke openly and freely about the divorce, the scandal, and the royal family itself. Additionally, often through tears, Martell discussed how the Red Keep brushed aside her concerns, the pointed questions about Rhaenys’ skin color, and what really went down between her and Lyanna Stark. Read on for all of the interview’s biggest bombshells about how terrible the Westerosi monarchy can be.
Relationships: Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45
Collections: Anonymous





	Elia Martell Speaks - 7 Bombshells From Last Night's Interview

### Elia Martell Speaks - 7 Bombshells from Last Night's Interview 

  
By Bellagyr Ormello  
Royals News Editor  


  
  


File under: thank-god-i-live-in-braavos 

  


The Red Keep did their best to smear their way to lower viewership, but it was no use: On Triember 7, the long-awaited (and well-teased) interview between Princess Elia Martell and TV legend Opara Wynnfred aired as a primetime special on NBS, and you just know the royal tea spilled out of all those dainty porcelain cups. Over two hours (with plenty of commercial breaks), the Princess of Dorne spoke openly and freely about the divorce, the scandal, and the royal family itself. Additionally, often through tears, Martell discussed how the Red Keep brushed aside her concerns, the pointed questions about Rhaenys’ skin color, and what really went down between her and Lyanna Stark. Read on for all of the interview’s biggest bombshells about how terrible the Westerosi monarchy can be.

  


**Aerys made Martell cry before her wedding**

As a direct contradiction to a flurry of tabloid reports that emerged months after her royal wedding, Martell said that she didn’t make Queen Rhaella cry over a spat about ringbearers. In fact, she says, she grew up hearing her mother’s (the elder Princess Arianne) stories about her time as Rhaella’s principle lady-in-waiting and knew the Queen to be a gentle and warm woman. The close relationship between Rhaella and Arianne meant that Martell and Rhaella have always been cordial. What actually happened? The King refused to attend the wedding at the Grand Sept of Baelor, despite publicly welcoming Martell to the family, and refused to have Prince Viserys participate as ringbearer in the ceremony. Rhaella pushed for Aerys to appear but Viserys had to watch from the sidelines as Princess Arianne (the younger) served as ringbearer. 

  


**The Red Keep was “only interested in protecting the King”**

Through tears, Martell explained that the Kingsguard and Gold Cloaks of the Red Keep are there only to protect the King - which means that any other member of the royal family, or any other noble in the King’s way better watch out. While refusing to name specific incidents out of respect for the individuals’ affected privacy, Martell’s descriptions evoke the long-running rumors about King Aerys’ treatment of his wife; Lady Joanna Lannister, the wife of his one-time confidant and Hand Tywin Lannister; Lords Rickard and Brandon Stark, as well as their diplomatic staff, and many others who have been caught in the **_crossfires_** of Aerys’ rage.

  


**Aegon and Rhaenys were offered no protection**

Upon the birth of Aegon (whose full name is Aegon Nymeros Martell Targaryen the Sixth), the press narrative was that Martell and Rhaegar, in the hopes of settling into their household and role as Princess and Prince of Dragonstone, were moving away from the public eye in Kingslanding to the relative privacy of the gloomy island. Now, Martell reveals the actual reason for the move - which some tabloids had posited as a way for Martell to isolate Rhaegar from his family. Two armed intruders had actually broken into the Red Keep, scaling the walls and finding the royal nursery where Rhaenys slept with the intent to kill both her and Martell, who was eight months pregnant at the time with Aegon. “We get threats everyday from angry, racist, hating people, and the Red Keep has continuously refused to protect the children from the effects of this vitriol. If anything, they’ve stoked the **_flames_** of the racist rhetoric to deflect from their own **_fires_**.” The intruders were only stopped by pure luck and the skills of the guards Martell’s brothers had insisted she bring with her. “If it weren’t for my brothers’ insistence, and for Areo Hotah’s skill, Rhaenys would have been stabbed to death. The monster was actually trying to drag my daughter out from under her father’s bed, where she was hiding, and holding a knife in his other hand.” At this point, Martell was visibly overcome, and asked to pause the interview to collect herself and drink water. Afterwards, concerned with the lack of security offered at the Red Keep and the “suspicious” absence of the Kingsguard, Martell insisted their household relocate to their seat at Dragonstone, where access to the children could be much stricter.

  


**The royal family had “concerns” about Rhaenys’ skin color**

Martell relayed a conversation that occurred between Rhaegar and prominent family members while Rhaenys was first presented at court. There were “concerns” and “conversations” about how Dornish Rhaenys looked. When pressed by Wynnfred what exactly was said, Martell revealed a senior family member refused to hold the baby because they said Rhaenys “smelled Dornish.” Wynnfred was astonished and shook up by this particular revelation. “Did your husband, husband at the time, say anything in response?” she asked, to which Martell shook her head in fury. “To hear someone with the blood of Myriah Martell and Dyanna Dayne say such a thing was incredible enough. But to know that there were people in that room who could have stood up for me, for Rhaenys, for Dorne, and did not - it left me speechless.” 

  


**What really happened at Harrenhall**

Everyone knows the story of the moment when all smiles died at Harrenhall, as Prince Rhaegar snubbed his pregnant wife for teenaged Lyanna Stark. Tabloids claimed that Elia threatened Lyanna’s life, causing the Stark entourage to flee the games earlier than expected. In reality, Elia had little-to-no contact with the girl. “I know everyone wants me to be the harpy, but I don’t even know her. I think I may have said hello to her once.” Martell admits she was “totally blindsighted” by her husband’s attentions to Stark. When she tried to approach him about his blatant courting of the other woman, Rhaegar “used gaslighting 101 to tell me it was all in my head, that he was just honoring a great athlete, that he respected her actions and nothing more. And I believed him, because why wouldn’t I believe my husband and partner? And I regret believing that because I think had I really seen what was happening, I would have been able to protect myself and the children more. I would have been able to do more. But I wasn’t supposed to see it. I don’t think I even wanted to see it.” 

  


**The Red Keep and the tabloids have an “invisible partnership”**

The biggest moment of the interview came when Wynnfred began asking questions about Martell’s contentious divorce from Prince Rhaegar. As tabloids began printing more and more scurrilous articles about Martell being a “Princess from Hell” and making her mother-in-law cry, flirting with foreign dignitaries, and bullying staff - Rhaegar began an affair with the teenaged Lyanna Stark. Martell said that the Red Keep refused to let her respond to any press inquiries about rumors with anything except “no comment” which became “increasingly hard to reconcile” when Martell discovered Rhaegar’s affair. Tabloids painted Martell as the shrill Dornishwoman whose affairs led Rhaegar to seek comfort in Lyanna’s arms. Martell denies that she was ever unfaithful, and points out that the tabloids only painted her that way when news of Rhaegar’s dalliance began to leak out. “It was when everything started to really worse that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but that the tabloids and the Red Keep were willing to lie to protect other members of the family,” she said.

  


**After Martell asked for a divorce, Rhaegar dithered**

Incredibly, despite having a teenage mistress, Rhaegar did want to stay married to Elia at first. But for Martell, the collected indignity was too much to bear. “I’ve always valued independence. I’ve always been outspoken, especially about women’s rights - ‘unbowed, unbent, unbroken’ are more than just House words for me. And I had to ask myself: is this the kind of relationship I deserve? Is this what is right for my children to see growing up?” After the initial papers had been compiled, Rhaegar switched courses, stating that he was going to procure an annulment from the Grand Septon. This would leave Martell’s children, Rhaenys and Aegon, as unclaimed by their father and thus out of the line for the throne. He even had plans to name his new child with Lyanna Stark “Aegon.” Martell smiled grimly at this. “To name your second son the same as the first, to pretend that your two elder children did not exist. This is astonishing.” Wynnfred stated. Diplomats and officials in the Master of Laws’ office prevailed, however, after a lengthy lecture of the difficulties of such an annulment; and Martell obtained the divorce that left Rhaenys and Aegon is her care and claimed by their father. There are still rumors that Rhaegar did in fact name his son with Lyanna Stark ‘Aegon,’ but this can’t be verified until the baby is presented at court after his mother is churched. Regardless, _messy as hell_. 

  


**And now for one nice thing...**

Martell is hanging out in the Water Gardens for now - which look like the Garden of Eden from my bleak Braavosi studio apartment with three weeks straight of rain - and glowing as she talks about family dinners with her brothers, spending time with her nieces and nephews, and showing the camera crew the veritable menagerie that young Rhaenys has accumulated since their move to Dorne (one cat, several lizards, multiple snakes, and many many koi fish in a beautiful marble pond). 

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by me watching last night and going, "isn't markle like two letters from martell?" even though in this situation elia is def more a diana.


End file.
